German President Horst Koehler resigned today in a surprise move after being criticised for reportedly linking military deployments abroad with the country’s economic interests – creating a new headache for Chancellor Angela Merkel.

GERMAN President Horst Koehler yesterday resigned in a surprise move after reportedly linking military deployments abroad with the country’s economic interests – creating a new headache for Chancellor Angela Merkel.

BOTH houses of the German parliament voted to contribute €22.4 billion to the €110bn joint eurozone IMF aid package for Greece after a stormy debate in the lower house.

German President Horst Koehler has won a second five-year term, a victory that gives a symbolic boost to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s hopes of forming a centre-right government after a national election this September.

A GERMAN cannibal was led handcuffed into court yesterday for a retrial to determine whether killing a man who wanted to be eaten amounts to murder.

German President Horst Koehler gave Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder the early election he sought tonight, agreeing that the government no longer had the support it needed to rule after a vote of no confidence.

A BATTERED Gerhard Schroeder yesterday persuaded parliament to agree to hold risky early elections, almost seven years after he swept to power with promises to revive Germany’s economy.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder today called for new elections, asking Parliament to bring down his government to enable him to seek a new mandate in a vote expected in September.

German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder faces a confidence motion he hopes to lose today, in a bid to bring down his own government and seek a new mandate for stalled economic reforms in early autumn elections.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder met today with his party and legislative leaders to smooth out a strategy for tomorrow’s vote of confidence – a tricky constitutional manoeuvre intended to bring about early national elections.

German president Horst Koehler bowed his head in shame before the victims of the Nazi Holocaust today and promised Germany will wage a determined battle against anti-Semitism.

Horst Koehler, a former head of the International Monetary Fund who has called for bolder economic reforms in Germany, was elected today as the country’s ninth postwar president.

Frenchman Jean Lemierre has been re-elected president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

FINANCE Minister Charlie McCreevy will host his EU colleagues and central bank governors at a meeting in the controversial Punchestown Exhibition Centre in his Kildare constituency tomorrow.

The EU's Irish presidency played down hopes of a decision on a new IMF leader at informal talks this weekend among EU finance ministers.

The decision by the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) managing director, Horst Koehler, to quit has sparked speculation that UK Chancellor Gordon Brown may replace him.

The German cannibal who confessed to killing a man he met over the Internet and eating his flesh told his murder trial judges today: “I had my big kick and I don’t need to do it again,”

The German cannibal who confessed to killing a man he met over the Internet and eating his flesh should spend life behind bars for murder, prosecutors said today as they made closing arguments at his trial.

EUROPEAN Central Bank president Wim Duisenberg said the key to boosting the pace of economic recovery lies in boosting consumer and business confidence, and it is not interest rate cuts that will do this.

IMF managing director Horst Koehler said yesterday that the world's policymakers are ready to shield a global economic recovery, which faces risks and uncertainties.

IMF managing director Horst Koehler said a team will be sent to Argentina in May to negotiate the letter of intent.

For the first time in its troubled post-Soviet history, Russia is prepared to start repaying loans to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) ahead of schedule, President Vladimir Putin has said.